The Gate Beside the Trees
by Lee Whimsy
Summary: Prequel to "A Thrush, Ready to Sing." The first winter after the battle, Thorin struggles to hold onto the truth. Some things, though, are certain beyond doubt. (Happy ending AU featuring acorns, hot cocoa, and first kisses.)


**The Gate Beside the Trees**

A/N: Written for Jory. The title comes from Eavan Boland's poem "How We Made a New Art on Old Ground."

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><p>Coins rattled and clinked as Bilbo slid down the pile of treasure and came to a stumbling halt. The lantern in his hand swung wildly, small flame guttering, and only luck kept him from tripping over his own feet and bouncing all the way down to the bottom, like a pebble in an avalanche.<p>

"You know, this place is a shambles," he said as he brushed the dust off his clothes. It was a futile gesture: the dirt and old blood on his shirt would never come out, not with a thousand washings. "One day we should set everyone to tidying up. Do dwarves bother with spring cleaning, or is that another one of my strange hobbitish customs?"

Thorin sat hunched in the shadow of one of the stone pillars that Smaug had sent crashing to the ground. The lantern-light cast strangely on his face, deepening the lines around his mouth and eyes. "You should leave," he said, when it became clear that Bilbo, having found Thorin at last, wouldn't be put off any amount of silence. "It's not safe."

Bilbo looked about, just in case there was a pack of orcs about to leap down from the staircases. "Not safe? Why on earth not?"

"Because I am here."

Bilbo settled down beside him, close enough to feel the unnatural heat of his body: as if a dragon had settled beneath his skin. "Nonsense. I escaped Smaug on this very spot, and I could certainly escape you, if need be. Why don't we go raid the storerooms? We haven't seen you at supper this past week and more, and no one would begrudge us some midnight bread and ale."

"I can't. This is the only place I never see them," said Thorin. His gaze drifted back to the sea of gold surrounding them.

"Who do you mean?"

"The spirits. They're haunting the mountain, you know. Fíli and Kíli." Thorin picked up a handful of coins and let them run through his fingers, glinting as they fell. "I see them everywhere else, but not here. They don't like the gold."

So it was Raven Hill again. Bilbo ought to have known.

"Thorin," he said, carefully. He loved that name, and using it in such a studied way always made him feel strange. Dishonest. "I'm sorry to ask, but—how did they die?"

This was always the trickiest part. Sometimes it went badly wrong. If it did, then Bilbo would be obliged to listen while Thorin told him about Fíli, stabbed through the back, his body thrown from Raven Hill and lying broken on the ice; about Kíli, forsaken by his kin, choking for breath as his lungs filled with blood. The worst of Thorin's sickness had faded in the months since the battle, but his ugliest fears still clawed their way inside.

It was the dead of night, and the mountain was still and quiet around them, a ghostly silence that threatened to swallow them both up. In Long Lake, the fish were picking at Smaug's bones. Here in the mountain, though, in the lightless caverns where he'd slept so long, something of the dragon lingered.

Bilbo waited, scarcely daring to breathe.

But this time Thorin only slumped, old and tired, and buried his face in his hands.

"It happened again," he said. "It's not—they're not dead. They're not spirits. It was only a dream, only a—" he bit off the words. "Tell me, then. How it really happened."

Bilbo obeyed. For the hundredth time, he recounted it all: the dragon's death, the battle, the aftermath. Thorin listened wordlessly, but when Bilbo finished his tale, he grabbed a chalice, heavy and finely carved, and threw it with such force that it hit another pillar and fell dented to the ground.

"How can you bear to be near me?" At last he sounded more like himself. "You should have left this accursed place when you had the chance."

"What if I don't want to leave?" Bilbo asked, sensibly.

But Thorin only turned away, saying, "Do not lie. How will I remember the truth if I cannot trust you to tell it?"

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><p>Long after Bilbo left the treasury, a dot of light vanishing into an enormous darkness, Thorin followed after him. He saw no one as he made his way up to the main floors, but that was only to be expected; a company of thirteen dwarves and one hobbit seemed very small indeed after a winter spent rattling around in the vast caverns and corridors of Erebor. The kitchens adjacent to the royal quarters were the only place in the mountain that one could be certain of finding company, and as he drew near Thorin heard familiar voices echoing along the hall, and the warm light of a cooking fire reflected against smooth stone walls.<p>

Compared to the kitchens and vast storerooms that served the great halls, this room was small and cozy, the floor patterned in colorful mosaics. A heavy cast iron pot hung over the hearth, and a sturdy wooden table, lovingly carved by Thorin's grandmother long ago, sat squarely in the center of the room.

Fíli was sprawled out near the edge of the hearth. Kíli was pulling old earthenware mugs down from narrow shelves carved into walls, leaning up and reaching heroically; he froze when he saw Thorin in the archway. It might, at another time, have been comical.

"Uncle," he said. "Are you—?"

When he hesitated, balanced between hope and fear, Fíli threw himself into the breach. "Kíli found something in the packs that Dain gave us. It's called cocoa. You make a drink with it. We're trying it out, if you want some?"

Thorin hadn't tasted hot cocoa since before the fall of Erebor. Even then it had been a rare commodity, reserved for the king's table. But here were his nephews, idling away the long winter nights while a pot of the drink bubbled merrily over a banked fire. They were truly home at last.

"Come here," Thorin said, through a lump in his throat.

Fíli obeyed, relief breaking across his face. Thorin pulled him into a tight embrace. Bilbo had been right. His nephews were blessedly, entirely real—nothing like spirits at all. "By all means, pour me some of this mysterious drink," he said over Fíli's shoulder, not quite willing to let go.

Kíli pulled down another mug. "I've had four cups already. Fíli hit me with the spoon." He held up his right hand, showing off his reddened fingers.

"As well he should have." Dís had always insisted that Kíli was too easily spoiled, and that Thorin's doting would only make him intolerable; Kíli, who could always be counted upon to fulfill his mother's dire predictions, stole a sip from Thorin's mug before handing it off.

"It's hot," he said cheekily.

Sure enough, the drink burned Thorin's throat when he took the first sip, and memory swept in like a storm. Just like that he was a lad again, returning chilled and laughing from one of his long rambles. There was his grandfather at this very table, supper cold on his plate, setting aside his work to ask Thorin all about the day's adventures; there was Dís, still only a babe, crawling into his lap and tugging at his braids, demanding a taste of whatever it was that her oldest brother was drinking.

"Very fine," Thorin said, and Kíli beamed.

"Bilbo said you could use something decent to warm you. We were going to bring some down to the treasury, but—well, here you are."

"Here I am," Thorin agreed, grateful beyond words that his nephews knew better than to fuss or fret. "And where is our burglar, if not keeping you company?"

"In his gardens, I think," Kíli said, taking advantage of Fíli's place at Thorin's side to steal the much-coveted spot beside the hearth. "We worked on the walls yesterday, and the day before. You should go out and look."

A broad precipice of the eastern slopes had been set aside for Bilbo's gardens. It was to be a royal present: a gift from the king and his heirs, made by their own hands. With the worst of winter behind them, the dwarves could turn their attention to matters outside the mountain at last, and Thorin had resolved that the gardens would be ready by springtime. Even when he was otherwise occupied—busy with other duties, or lost in his sickness—Fíli and Kíli were laboring to shape dirt and stone into terraces, invisible from the foothills, but large enough that Bilbo could plant and tend to his heart's content.

Kíli was desperate for a chance to show off their work. If Fíli was more restrained, it was only because he had spent four years as Thorin's apprentice before they settled in Ered Luin; he knew the quality of his work, but Kíli was certain of nothing but his skill on the battlefield.

It took only a little cajoling for Thorin to promise that yes, he would go out to the gardens, but only to make certain that their burglar hadn't fallen off the edge or been snatched up by a passing eagle. Just before Thorin left, Fíli poured out the last of the hot cocoa and gave it to him. "For Bilbo," he said, with a studied nonchalance that didn't fool Thorin for a moment. "He might be cold."

Thorin left his nephews scuffling over the spot by the hearth and made his way through the maze of the royal quarters with all the ease of long practice. Soon he stepped outside, ducking under an archway that was perfect for a hobbit but not quite tall enough for a good-sized dwarf. He squinted in the early morning light. As promised, Bilbo was fussing with something near one of the garden beds, and he waved Thorin over to a small stone bench with a pile of freshly-tilled earth beside it.

"Look," he said. "Won't it be grand?"

"I've no doubt," Thorin said. Nothing about the pile of dirt struck him as particularly extraordinary, but then, he wasn't a hobbit. Besides, the sight of Bilbo—mud caked under his fingernails, his cheeks flushed, his hair mussed by the wind—was enough to drive the last of the darkness from Thorin's heart, and when Bilbo smiled up at him, Thorin's mouth curved in response.

"I'm glad to see you out and about," said Bilbo. "It's quite a view up here, isn't it? The boys have done a fine job."

"What will you grow?"

"Oh, lavender, tansy, larkspur, peonies," Bilbo said, ticking the names off on his fingers. "Any seeds I can get my hands on, if only they'll survive. And my oak, of course. It's just sprouted, so I'll plant it here to start with, and in a few months I can transplant it. A little beyond the gates, do you think? It would look handsome there."

The beauty of the day vanished. "It sprouted," Thorin echoed. "Already?"

"Well, they do, you know," Bilbo said, and returned to his work, which seemed to involve collecting small pebbles and pitching them over the side of the mountain. "Not always this early, but the poor thing has lived a dreadfully exciting life these past few months, and I suppose that spring comes sooner to Beorn's land than it does in the north."

It was absurd to fret over an acorn; over nothing. But to the best of Thorin's knowledge, Bilbo had made only one fixed plan for his future, for life after the horror of war. Now it was ruined.

"I'm sorry," he said. The words felt painfully insufficient. If Bilbo had left Erebor after the battle, before the mountains passes snowed shut, he would already be home in the Shire. If Thorin hadn't been so weak, if he'd been able to conceal the worst of his sickness until after Bilbo was already gone— "I know that you meant to plant it when you were home at last."

"I did," said Bilbo, serenely, patting down a handful of dirt. "And I have."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Thorin stared down at Bilbo, his distress giving way to disbelief, and then to an entirely different emotion.

"Bilbo," he said, low and rough. "You cannot mean that as I want you to."

Bilbo looked up, shading his eyes against the morning sun. "And why not, might I ask?"

Thorin tried to speak. "Would you," he began. He had to clear his throat and try again. "Would you like something to drink? Fíli asked me to bring a mug out for you."

It wasn't even remotely what he meant to say, and Bilbo seemed to know it; he clambered to his feet, but when he reached out for the proffered mug, he put his hands over Thorin's, holding them both in place. "You are absurd," Bilbo said, and then, standing up on tiptoe, he kissed him.

At the Carrock, half-dead and dizzy with pain, Thorin had realized that Bilbo fit against him as if they'd been carved from the same stone. He'd carried that knowledge with him across the months and miles, a secret treasure kept close to his chest. So it was only right—it was the only natural thing in the world—for him to haul Bilbo up into his arms without a second thought. Bilbo made a noise halfway between a squeak and a laugh. The mug tumbled to the ground and rolled away, miraculously unbroken.

"Surely you knew," Bilbo said between kisses. "I've told you a dozen times. I'm here because I want to be. I'm here because I love—" He swallowed the words, breath hitching as Thorin nipped at his lower lip.

Bilbo hadn't stayed out of pity, Thorin realized, belatedly. He hadn't stayed because the passes across the Misty Mountains were snowed shut, or because the road was long and dangerous. He had stayed because there was no place else in the world he wanted to be. He had stayed because he was already home.

"You have a great deal of gold, Thorin Oakenshield," Bilbo said, breathless, enormously fond. "And a fine kingdom. But it needs more trees."

There would be trees by the gates, old and strong, leaves green against the mountain and the sky. There would be flowers in the garden, and a fire banked low in the kitchen, and a mountain filled with work and song. In every branch and stone, in all of Erebor, there would be this—there would be love.

"You love me," Thorin said, dazed.

It was true. Bilbo would always be more than happy to remind him of it.


End file.
